Bear in mind that Obama is a typical leftist. The America that he could love is a far different America than the one envisioned by the Founders, or by a large (but dwindling) fraction of today’s Americans. If you think about it, you will discern a progression — or, rather, a regression — from FDR to LBJ to Obama: from statism at home and victory abroad to statism at home and surrender abroad.

The “official” unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is phony. The real rate is 12 percent, just 1.5 points below the 21st century high-water mark of 13.5 (reached in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013).

The real unemployment rate is disguised by the declining the labor-force participation rate, which has accelerated since the onset of Obamanomics. The decline is concentrated among younger workers, and has probably been helped along by Obamacare. (See the final paragraph of the post.)

Like this:

Some of the rabid dogs who brutally murdered 12 persons at the offices of Charlie Hebdo were put down, as they should have been.

But I’m not joining the hysterical cult of “Je suis Charlie.” Why not? I begin with Peter (the good) Hitchens, who writes:

Once again we are ruled by a Dictatorship of Grief. Ever since the death of Princess Diana, we have been subject to these periodic spasms when everyone is supposed to think and say the same thing, or else.

We were told on Friday that ‘politicians from all sides’ had lined up to attack Ukip’s Nigel Farage for supposedly ‘exploiting’ the Paris massacre.

Mr Farage had (quite reasonably) pointed out that the presence of Islamist fanatics in our midst might have something to do with, a) uncontrolled mass migration from the Muslim world, and b) decades of multicultural refusal to integrate them into our laws and customs.

Rather than disputing this with facts and logic (admittedly this would be hard), the three ‘mainstream’ parties joined in screeching condemnation….

The Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg said Mr Farage was ‘making political points’ on the ‘back of bloody murders’.

Well, who wasn’t? A sanctimonious unanimity descended on politics and the media. ‘Je suis Charlie,’ everyone said. It was an issue of liberty, we all said. They can’t silence us, stop us drawing cartoons, etc etc etc.

Great mountains of adjectives piled up on every corner, much like those hills of flowers and teddy bears we like to place at the scenes of tragedies.

You can feel the presence of the snarling conformist mob, waiting for some dissenter on whom they can fall, kicking and biting. So-called social media, in fact an intolerant and largely brainless electronic mob, has made this much worse since the sad death of the Princess.

Speaking of intolerance, that’s the name of Charlie‘s game. It’s a stridently left-wing rag that mocks religion (of all kinds), and anything else deemed too “respectable” for the adolescent tastes of its staff.

What’s most striking about the “Je suis Charlie” movement is its pure hypocrisy. Back to Hitchens:

As for freedom, here’s an interesting thing. The French Leftist newspaper Liberation reported on September 12, 1996, that three stalwarts of Charlie Hebdo (including Stephane ‘Charb’ Charbonnier) had campaigned in their magazine to collect more than 170,000 signatures for a petition calling for a ban on the French National Front party. They did this in the name of the ‘Rights of Man’.

You, like me, may dislike the National Front greatly. But lovers of liberty simply do not seek to ban parties they do not like.

This is a double paradox. The French National Front exists mainly because a perfectly reasonable concern about mass immigration was sneeringly dismissed by the mainstream French parties. Something similar is happening in Germany, where large demonstrations against ‘the Islamisation of the West’ in many cities have been scornfully attacked by that country’s elite.

Yes, the left gets up in arms when some of its members are slaughtered by Muslim pigs (I love that phrase). But this is the same, hypocritical left that condones and promotes censorship. Clarice Feldman nails it:

Count me in the camp with Matthew Continetti, who gives countless examples of liberal hypocrisy about free speech including the following examples:

Do liberals actually believe in the right to offend? Their attitude seems to me to be ambivalent at best. And this equivocation was apparent within hours of the attack, when news outlets censored or refused to publish the images for which the Charlie Hebdo editors were killed. Classifying satire or opinion as “hate speech” subject to regulation is not an aberration. It is commonplace.

Indeed, the outpouring of support for free speech in the aftermath of the Paris attack coincides with, and partially obscures, the degradation of speech rights in the West. Commencement last year was marked by universities revoking appearances by speakers Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali for no other reason than that mobs disagreed with the speakers’ points of view. I do not recall liberals rallying behind Condi and Hirsi Ali then.

He adds to the mix of examples, Brendan Eich’s opposition to gay marriage costing him his job, the Chicago Sun Times’ removal of a Kevin D. Williamson article critical of transgender activism, Brandeis University’s unremitting assaults on a student for publicizing another student’s cheering the assassination of police officers, blaming an obscure video for the violent attack in Benghazi. Worse yet, there’s the political and academic efforts to shut off free speech which might offend someone, (someone, I observe, who usually just happens to hold the views prevailing among the left-wing professors and administrators)….

Obama can’t even bring himself to speak plainly about the savages whose deeds have sparked millions to rally in the name of Charlie. Scott Johnson is on the case:

President Obama performed the obligatory characterization of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris last week as “cowardly” and “evil.” “Evil” it certainly was. “Cowardly” would probably be an adjective more appropriate to the Obama administration’s characterization of Islamist terrorism as “violent extremism,” though “stupid” certainly shouldn’t be overlooked either.

President Obama and his administration refuse to identify the ideology that inspires our enemy. They continue to yammer incessantly about “extremism” and “extremists.” Islam is not to be mentioned, unless it is to be appeased and defended. Obama is himself something of an extremist on the subject.

Of course he is, as Clarice Feldman reminds us:

[H]ere’s what Obama said in 2012 after the slaughter in Benghazi: “A crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well — for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion, we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them…. The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

(What does it mean, this phrase: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”, if not an incitement to attack targets like Hedbo?)

The future must not belong to Islam or its apologists on the left. It must not belong to those who are afraid to speak the truth about the aims of Islam. It must not belong to anti-Semites.

The slaughter at Charlie Hebdo is not a reason for solidarity with the left, but a reason to oppose the left and its clients — especially (but not exclusively) the murderous adherents of Islam.

Multiculturalism is one of those buzzwords that does not mean what it should. The ancient and generic Western study of many cultures is not multiculturalism. Rather, the trendy term promotes non-Western cultures to a status equal with or superior to Western culture largely to fulfill contemporary political agendas….

…In terms of the challenge of radical Islam, multiculturalism manifests itself in the abstract with the notion that Islamists are simply the fundamentalist counterparts to any other religion. Islamic extremists are no different from Christian extremists, as the isolated examples of David Koresh or the Rev. Jim Jones are cited ad nauseam as the morally and numerically equivalent bookends to thousands of radical Islamic terrorist acts that plague the world each month. We are not to assess other religions by any absolute standard, given that such judgmentalism would inevitably be prejudiced by endemic Western privilege….

Most of the millions who today paid lip-service to liberty in the streets of Paris and other cosmopolitan capitals will tomorrow resume their war against liberty, in the name of multiculturalism andothermanifestationsofpoliticalcorrectness.

The “official” unemployment rate of 5.9 percent is phony. The real rate remains at 12.4 percent, just 1.1 points below the 21st century high-water mark of 13.5 (reached in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013).

The real unemployment rate is disguised by the continued decline of the labor-force participation rate — a decline that has accelerated since the onset of Obamanomics. The decline is concentrated among younger workers, and has probably been helped along by Obamacare. (See the final paragraph of the post.)

Like this:

I was reminded by Mark Steyn of Leni Riefenstahl‘s propagandistic masterpiece of 1934, Triumph of the Will. Fräulein Riefenstahl made a media star of Adolf Hitler, and in so doing showed the way for the image-makers who have since given us the likes of John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Shallow men all, with images that glowed until the mask was ripped off.

Triumph of the Will reminds me especially of Obama. See it for yourself, here. A segment that begins around 32:00 praises Hitler’s “shovel ready” projects. A segment that begins around 42:00 looks like a preview of the mob hysteria that surrounded Obama’s first inaugural in 2009.

Can a Third Reich happen here? In many respects, it has happened here, though in slow motion, over a span of more than 100 years. Teddy Roosevelt was the first imperial president, but not the most imperious. FDR trumped TR, but FDR had nothing on BHO.

On the other hand, we have Carter-Clinton II, ready to: kowtow to those who would bury us, create the illusion that peace will reign perforce, and act on that illusion by slashing the defense budget (thereby giving aid and comfort to our enemies).

Through the haze of smoke and glare of mirrors I see a youngish president exhorting us to “fear nothing but fear itself” while proclaiming “peace for our time,” as we “follow the yellow-brick road” to impotent serfdom.

…and whether the play’s a tragedy, or not, seems to depend on how its critics (the media) depict it.

Obama’s policy toward the Middle East seems to have been based on wishful thinking about rapprochement with “progressives” in the Middle East. His underlying “strategy” of disengagement hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially because it’s consistent with the continued shrinkage of U.S. military power.

This mixture of bumbling and willful impotence could only have invited aggressive moves — even though not aimed directly at the U.S. Thus Putin’s adventures and the growing militancy of China may seem to flow from Obama’s handling of foreign and defense policy. Would such things have happened anyway? Perhaps. They certainly did in the past, and in ways more directly threatening to U.S. interests (from the Berlin blockade to the Cuban missile crisis). But memories are short, and it’s easy to think of the relatively quiescent decade after the first Gulf War as the norm.

If the aggressiveness continues, and especially if it’s aimed more directly at U.S. interests, the next administration — and the public — will come face to face with the crucial choice: Withdraw more completely or reengage (with requisite rearmament). Obama has tried to walk a tightrope between the two alternatives, but it’s a tightrope that can’t be walked for long.

Having given the matter more thought, I must add that Obama is walking the tightrope reluctantly. He cannot overtly abandon the world stage and leave American interests entirely unprotected. That way lies greater disgrace than he is almost certain to endure, if not removal from office.

But aside from that consideration — and no other — Obama would make America into a “pitiful, helpless giant.” I turn (not for the first time) to Norman Podhoretz:

… [A]s astute a foreign observer as Conrad Black can flatly say that, “Not since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, and before that the fall of France in 1940, has there been so swift an erosion of the world influence of a Great Power as we are witnessing with the United States.”

Yet if this is indeed the pass to which Mr. Obama has led us—and I think it is—let me suggest that it signifies not how incompetent and amateurish the president is, but how skillful. His foreign policy, far from a dismal failure, is a brilliant success as measured by what he intended all along to accomplish….

… As a left-wing radical, Mr. Obama believed that the United States had almost always been a retrograde and destructive force in world affairs. Accordingly, the fundamental transformation he wished to achieve here was to reduce the country’s power and influence. And just as he had to fend off the still-toxic socialist label at home, so he had to take care not to be stuck with the equally toxic “isolationist” label abroad.

This he did by camouflaging his retreats from the responsibilities bred by foreign entanglements as a new form of “engagement.” At the same time, he relied on the war-weariness of the American people and the rise of isolationist sentiment (which, to be sure, dared not speak its name) on the left and right to get away with drastic cuts in the defense budget, with exiting entirely from Iraq and Afghanistan, and with “leading from behind” or using drones instead of troops whenever he was politically forced into military action.

The consequent erosion of American power was going very nicely when the unfortunately named Arab Spring presented the president with several juicy opportunities to speed up the process. First in Egypt, his incoherent moves resulted in a complete loss of American influence, and now, thanks to his handling of the Syrian crisis, he is bringing about a greater diminution of American power than he probably envisaged even in his wildest radical dreams.

For this fulfillment of his dearest political wishes, Mr. Obama is evidently willing to pay the price of a sullied reputation. In that sense, he is by his own lights sacrificing himself for what he imagines is the good of the nation of which he is the president, and also to the benefit of the world, of which he loves proclaiming himself a citizen….

No doubt he will either deny that anything has gone wrong, or failing that, he will resort to his favorite tactic of blaming others—Congress or the Republicans or Rush Limbaugh. But what is also almost certain is that he will refuse to change course and do the things that will be necessary to restore U.S. power and influence.

And so we can only pray that the hole he will go on digging will not be too deep for his successor to pull us out, as Ronald Reagan managed to do when he followed a president into the White House whom Mr. Obama so uncannily resembles. (“Obama’s Successful Foreign Failure,” The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2013)

No, he’d rather play the victim of G.W. Bush’s decisions and world events beyond his control. (See Peter Wehner’s “Obama Still Feeling Sorry for Himself,” Commentary, August 17, 2014.) Petulant whining is unattractive, but it’s better (for Obama) to be called a whiner than to be outed as a traitor.

A suburban St. Louis police chief on Friday identified the officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager ignited days of heated protests, and released documents alleging the teen was killed after a robbery in which he was suspected of stealing a $48.99 box of cigars.

Ferguson, Mo., Police Chief Thomas Jackson said that the robbery took place just before noon on Saturday at a nearby convenience store roughly 10 minutes before a police officer identified as Darren Wilson fired the bullet that killed Michael Brown. Police say that the shot was fired after a struggle touched off by Wilson’s confronting Brown. Jackson said Wilson is a six-year veteran with no disciplinary action on his record….

Police released still images and were planning to release video [here] from the robbery, at a QuikTrip store in Ferguson. Jackson said Wilson, along with other officers, were called to the area after a 911 call reporting a “strong-arm robbery” at a nearby convenience store….

According to the police reports, Brown and his friend, Dorian Johnson, were suspected of taking a box of cigars from a store in Ferguson that morning…. [Johnson has since confirmed that he and Brown committed the theft.]

Police have said Brown was shot after an officer encountered him and another man on the street. They say one of the men pushed the officer into his squad car, then physically assaulted him in the vehicle and struggled with the officer over the officer’s weapon. At least one shot was fired inside the car before the struggle spilled onto the street, where Brown was shot multiple times, according to police.

Why am I inclined to believe the account offered by the police chief? Because the “martyrdom” of Michael Brown bears an uncanny resemblance to previous cases involving “blameless” victims; for example:

the media lynching and unwarranted prosecution of George Zimmerman for defending himself from a violent punk named Trayvon Martin.

The “usual suspects” in the Ferguson fiasco are Obama, “liberals,” and (pseudo) libertarians. Obama converted a local problem into a federal issue, à la Trayvon Martin. “Liberals,” as usual, chose to depict a black thug as a victim.”Liberals” and (psuedo) libertarians (i.e., most self-styled libertarians) — speaking from the comfort of their affluent enclaves, where they rarely encounter thugs like Martin and Brown — began to shout “police brutality” without benefit of the facts.

Do I have all of the facts? Of course not. But I’m not the one who’s rushing to proclaim another innocent victim at the hands of a brutal policeman. If it turns out that the policeman deliberately shot a non-threatening victim, I’ll be the first to acknowledge it.

UPDATE 1 (08/18/14): It seems that Brown was not shot in the back. Nor does it seem that he was shot at very close range, that is, close enough to leave powder burns on skin or clothing:

This seems to contradict the statements of Brown’s friend, Dorian Johnson, who said the officer … grabbed Brown’s neck with one hand and shot him with the other.

The location of the bullet wounds, especially one in the top of the head, suggests that Brown was “giving up, or … charging forward at the officer.” My money is on “charging forward” — all 6’4″ and 292 pounds of him. Thus the seemingly large number of shots (six), which probably were fired in rapid succession. Why? Here’s an analogy: When a beast charges a hunter, the hunter doesn’t shoot once; he keeps shooting until he runs out of bullets or the beast drops dead.

UPDATE 2 (08/19/14): Consider the source, but this version of the shooting is consistent with the (plausible) explanation offered in Update 1.

UPDATE 3 (09/07/14): Speaking of (pseudo) libertarians, I just happened across this post, in which the author empathizes with the destructive goons of Ferguson; for example:

I cannot possibly imagine the rage and indignation that I would feel if I were regularly accosted by the police, questioned, detained, searched, arrested, or even just heckled. Or even just ignored when I needed help. I would feel not like a citizen but like a subject. Not like a fellow American, but like a detained, suspected, alien.

Jefferson said that he thought this the strongest government on earth, “the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.” If many black and Hispanic Americans, and the residents of our inner cities, do not feel this way–especially after four decades of an unconstitutional, unwinnable, immoral war on drugs–well, I find it hard to blame them.

Where is the outrage about the high rates of “real crime” committed by blacks against persons and property? Where is the hint of understanding that socioeconomic status is related to intelligence? Where is the condemnation of a culture that fosters crime and indolence? For some relevant background, see “The Freespace Posts,” especially the third of the introductory paragraphs.

UPDATE 5 (10/25/14):This story, from The Washington Post, summarizes the state of play:

Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown fought for control of the officer’s gun, and Wilson fatally shot the unarmed teenager after he moved toward the officer as they faced off in the street, according to interviews, news accounts and the full report of the St. Louis County autopsy of Brown’s body….

Some of the physical evidence — including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests — also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, The Post’s sources said, which casts Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer’s life….

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch late Tuesday night published Brown’s official county autopsy report, an analysis of which also suggests that the 18-year-old may not have had his hands raised when he was fatally shot, as has been the contention of protesters who have demanded Wilson’s arrest….

Experts told the newspaper that Brown was first shot at close range and may have been reaching for Wilson’s weapon while the officer was still in his vehicle and Brown was standing at the driver’s side window. The autopsy found material “consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm” in a wound on Brown’s thumb, the autopsy says.

As those who have been following the case closely are aware, Wilson testified before the grand jury that Brown reached for his (Wilson’s) gun and a struggle for the gun followed, during which Wilson fired two shots. Later, Wilson pursued Brown and, after he turned and then charged toward Wilson, fired multiple shots bringing him to the ground about 8 to 10 feet away from him.

The physical evidence is consistent with his testimony. The County Medical Examiner was one of the first witnesses to testify before the grand jury. He explained the autopsy he conducted on Brown. It will be useful to show the injuries discussed and, for these purposes, I insert a chart prepared by an examiner hired by Brown’s family. (The parallel chart from the ME has not been publicly released, although the ME’s testimony has been released).

The ME found a tangential injury on Brown’s right thumb that traveled along the surface of the thumb — grand jury testimony Volume 3 (Sept. 9), page 114, line 12 etc. (hereafter cited by just page and line number). The ME further explained that he saw what appeared to be “soot” in the wound, which was consistent with a shot from close range (116:22). Indeed, based on his training and expertise, the ME thought that the soot would be indicative of the gun that fired the bullet causing the wound having been only 6 to 9 inches away (118:12). The soot was consistent with that discharged from a gun (122:13). The official report from the Office of Medical Examiner later confirmed that “the previously described particles of foreign particulate matter are consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm.”

The significance of this wound and related physical evidence is that it places Brown’s right hand within 6 to 9 inches of the barrel of Wilson’s firearm. This physical evidence is thus quite consistent with Wilson’s testimony that Brown was trying to get hold of Wilson’s weapon, creating a fear in Wilson that he was going to get shot….

At some point in the altercation, it appears undisputed that Brown (and his friend Dorian Johnson) ran away from Wilson. Wilson pursued on foot and, according to Wilson, Brown eventually paused, turned around, and then charged at him.

The ME’s testimony also aligns with Wilson’s testimony on this point. The ME found various wounds to Brown’s arms, upper torso, and head. Focusing on the head wounds, a detailed report and summary report from the Office of the Medical Examiner indicated that one wound with an entrance to the vertex of Brown’s head was “downward and rightward” (detailed report at p. 2) and the wound with an entrance to central forehead was “downward, slightly backward, and rightward” (summary p. 1). The report also describes the entrance to the wounds on Michael Brown’s chest as “downward” or “slightly downward” (id.).

The ME explicated these findings at great length to the grand jurors. He explained that the entry direction for the head wounds, for example, was “slightly downward” (157:6). The earlier wounds would not have been disabling (151:1) and would not have been disabling in combination, until the final wound to the top of the head (159:15). In the ME’s opinion, the first wound was the wound to the thumb, the last was the wound to the top of Brown’s head (197:7). The ME specifically testified that if Brown was bent over, that would be consistent with the entry to the head wounds, although he cautioned that he could not say for certain what position Brown was in at the time he received the wound (166:11).

Perhaps most important, the ME carefully explained how he was able to identify entry points and exit points for the wounds to Brown. With regard to the wounds on the torso and head, there were no wounds from the back (197:18). With regard to the arms, there was only one injury that was from the back — an injury to “the posterior portion of the right forearm” (198:25). The ME indicated that it is extremely difficult to identify, from bullet wounds, the position of the arms at the time of a shot because “you’ve got . . . an elbow joint, you have a shoulder joint and then the wrist, you have a lot of mobility within that arm and it can be in a lot of scenarios” (133:11).

Here again, this testimony was consistent with Wilson’s testimony. It aligned with Brown charging forward toward Wilson, coming to a halt only when Wilson was able to get a fatal shot to the head. Significantly, the ME’s testimony did not align with those who claimed (before the grand jury or in the media) the Wilson had gunned Brown down in the back….

Of particular interest for evaluating Wilson’s testimony is the location of the 12 shell casings recovered. Two of them were recovered close to Wilson’s car, conforming to his testimony about his firing two shots there (vol. V, 226:4). After that, the remaining 10 casings were recovered adjacent to (or behind) the path that Wilson said Brown took when charging toward him. This was consistent with Wilson firing a series of shots as Brown rushed toward him, all the while backpedaling to try and increase the distance.

These are the highlights of the physical evidence that I have reviewed in the case, compared to Wilson’s testimony. Based on my initial read, so far as I can see there are no significant inconsistencies between the physical evidence and Wilson’s grand jury testimony. Other reviews have likewise not identified readily-apparent examples of problems with Wilson’s testimony. For example, a review of the grand jury testimony by three Associated Press reporters noted numerous examples of witness statements inconsistent with the physical evidence, but offered no examples from Wilson’s testimony.

The physical evidence is important because, unlike witness testimony, it doesn’t lie and can’t be accused of bias (such as racism). As the cliche goes, the physical evidence is what it is. In this case, the physical evidence aligned with Wilson’s testimony. To be sure, as my co-blogger Orin properly cautioned earlier this week, it is always possible for a potential target in criminal case to lie before a grand jury. But it is also possible for him to tell the truth. The grand jury had to sort out these competing possibilities — and the physical evidence gave no reason to doubt Wilson’s testimony.

By the measure of real unemployment, the Great Recession is still with us. Nor is it likely to end anytime soon, given the anti-business and anti-growth policies and rhetoric of the Obama administration.

Officially, the unemployment rate stands at 5.6 percent, as of December 2014. Unofficially — but in reality — the unemployment rate stands at 12.0 percent. This real rate has remained almost unchanged since October 2009. And it is significantly higher than the real rate of 10.0 percent that Obama “inherited” from G.W. Bush in January 2009.

No amount of “stimulus” or “quantitative easing” will create jobs when employers and entrepreneurs are loath to take the risk of expanding and starting businesses, given Obama’s penchant for regulating against success and taxing it when it is achieved. The job-killing effects of Obamacare will only worsen the situation. And, of course, taxing “the rich” is a sure way to hamper economic growth by stifling productive effort, innovation, and investment.

How can I say that the real unemployment rate is above 12 percent, even though the official rate is only 5.6 percent? Easily. Just follow this trail of definitions, provided by the official purveyor of unemployment statistics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Unemployed persons (Current Population Survey)
Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.

Unemployment rate
The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Labor force (Current Population Survey)
The labor force includes all persons classified as employed or unemployed in accordance with the definitions contained in this glossary.

Labor force participation rate
The labor force as a percent of the civilian noninstitutional population.

Civilian noninstitutional population (Current Population Survey)
Included are persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

In short, if you are 16 years of age and older, not confined to an institution or on active duty in the armed forces, but have not recently made specific efforts to find employment, you are not (officially) a member of the labor force. And if you are not (officially) a member of the labor force because you have given up looking for work, you are not (officially) unemployed — according to the BLS. Of course, you are really unemployed, but your unemployment is well disguised by the BLS’s contorted definition of unemployment.

What has happened is this: Since the first four months of 2000, when the labor-force participation rate peaked at 67.3 percent, it has declined to 62.7 percent:

Source: See next graph.

Why the decline, which had came to a halt during G.W. Bush’s second term but resumed in late 2008? The slowdown of 2000 (coincident with the bursting of the dot-com bubble) and the shock of 9/11 can account for the decline from 2000 to 2004, as workers chose to withdraw from the labor force when faced with dimmer employment prospects. But what about the sharper decline that began near the end of Bush’s second term?

There we see not only the demoralizing effects of the Great Recession but also the lure of incentives to refrain from work, namely, extended unemployment benefits, the relaxation of welfare rules, the aggressive distribution of food stamps, and “free” healthcare” for an expanded Medicaid enrollment base and 20-somethings who live in their parents’ basements.* Need I add that both the prolongation of the Great Recession and the enticements to refrain from work are Obama’s doing? (That’s on the supply side. On the demand side, of course, there are the phony and even negative effects of “stimulus” spending, the chilling effects of regimeuncertainty, which has persisted beyond the official end of the Great Recession, and the expansion of government spending.)

If the labor-force participation rate had remained at its peak of 67.3 percent, so that the disguised unemployed was no longer disguised, the official unemployment rate would have reached 13.1 percent in October 2009, as against the nominal peak of 10 percent. Further, instead of declining to the phony rate of 5.9 percent in September 2014, the official unemployment rate would have stayed almost constant — hovering between 12.4 percent and 13.5 percent.

In sum, the real unemployment rate was 3.1 points above the nominal rate in October 2009; the real rate is now 6.4 points above the nominal rate. The growing disparity between the real and nominal unemployment rates is evident in this graph:

* Contrary to some speculation, the labor-force participation rate is not declining because older workers are retiring earlier. The participation rate among workers 55 and older rose between 2002 and 2012. The decline is concentrated among workers under the age of 55, and especially workers in the 16-24 age bracket. (See this table at BLS.gov.) Why? My conjecture: The Great Recession caused a shakeout of marginal (low-skill) workers, many of whom simply dropped out of the labor market. And it became easier for them to drop out because, under Obamacare, many of them became eligible for Medicaid and many others enjoy prolonged coverage (until age 26) under their parents’ health plans.

Nor should you be surprised by the stickiness of unemployment, when it is measured correctly. The real unemployment rate is several percentage points above the nominal rate. For details, see “The Obama Effect: Disguised Unemployment.”

Like this:

I see, in recent events, the makings of a New Axis, formed on Russia, Iran, and China. The New Axis, if unchallenged, would be able to isolate and extort the United States. The stark alternatives will be a rerun of World War II or de facto surrender by the United States.

Without a sudden and massive reversal of America’s disarmament, there will be little hope of defeating the New Axis in a rerun of World War II. A 21st Century Alliance would be weaker (relatively) than the World War II Alliance because Britain would not be the player that it was — in spirit or in war-making potential. Continental Europe would sit it out, for fear of retaliation from Russia, even though a victorious Russia would quickly roll up the continent. Israel, India, and Japan would be tied down (if not knocked out quickly). Thus, the U.S. would stand almost alone, with relatively insignificant support from Australia and Canada (maybe).

This gloomy scenario, it seems to me, is the inevitable — and foreseeable — dénouement of Obama’s foreign and defense policies, which seem calculated to encourage Russian and Chinese expansionism. The evidence is there in Obama’s calculated fecklessness in the Middle East, and in his dealings with Russia and China.

As one commentator puts it:

… The fate of the free world no longer rests with the US. It now rests with Putin. He and the mullahs in Iran, presented with the spectacle of the preening narcissist in the White House gazing in rapt adoration at his own reflection, are surely laughing fit to bust.

And why shouldn’t the First Narcissist preen? For he has achieved precisely what he wanted, his true goal that I described in this blog when Obama first ran for President: to extend the reach of the state over peoples’ lives at home, to emasculate the power of America abroad, and to make the free white world the slave of those he falsely characterised as the victims of that white world’s oppression…. (Melanie Phillips, “Putin Checkmates America,” Melanie’s Blog, September 15, 2013)

Norman Podhoretz delivers a fuller version of this thesis; for example:

… [A]s astute a foreign observer as Conrad Black can flatly say that, “Not since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, and before that the fall of France in 1940, has there been so swift an erosion of the world influence of a Great Power as we are witnessing with the United States.”

Yet if this is indeed the pass to which Mr. Obama has led us—and I think it is—let me suggest that it signifies not how incompetent and amateurish the president is, but how skillful. His foreign policy, far from a dismal failure, is a brilliant success as measured by what he intended all along to accomplish….

… As a left-wing radical, Mr. Obama believed that the United States had almost always been a retrograde and destructive force in world affairs. Accordingly, the fundamental transformation he wished to achieve here was to reduce the country’s power and influence. And just as he had to fend off the still-toxic socialist label at home, so he had to take care not to be stuck with the equally toxic “isolationist” label abroad.

This he did by camouflaging his retreats from the responsibilities bred by foreign entanglements as a new form of “engagement.” At the same time, he relied on the war-weariness of the American people and the rise of isolationist sentiment (which, to be sure, dared not speak its name) on the left and right to get away with drastic cuts in the defense budget, with exiting entirely from Iraq and Afghanistan, and with “leading from behind” or using drones instead of troops whenever he was politically forced into military action.

The consequent erosion of American power was going very nicely when the unfortunately named Arab Spring presented the president with several juicy opportunities to speed up the process. First in Egypt, his incoherent moves resulted in a complete loss of American influence, and now, thanks to his handling of the Syrian crisis, he is bringing about a greater diminution of American power than he probably envisaged even in his wildest radical dreams.

For this fulfillment of his dearest political wishes, Mr. Obama is evidently willing to pay the price of a sullied reputation. In that sense, he is by his own lights sacrificing himself for what he imagines is the good of the nation of which he is the president, and also to the benefit of the world, of which he loves proclaiming himself a citizen….

No doubt he will either deny that anything has gone wrong, or failing that, he will resort to his favorite tactic of blaming others—Congress or the Republicans or Rush Limbaugh. But what is also almost certain is that he will refuse to change course and do the things that will be necessary to restore U.S. power and influence.

And so we can only pray that the hole he will go on digging will not be too deep for his successor to pull us out, as Ronald Reagan managed to do when he followed a president into the White House whom Mr. Obama so uncannily resembles. (“Obama’s Successful Foreign Failure,” The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2013)

President Obama on Thursday announced an administrative policy change that will let people keep their existing health insurance for another year, but the plan is already facing pushback from Republicans, some Democrats and the insurance industry….

…Mr. Obama predicted Thursday, “There’s gonna be some state-by-state evaluation on how this is handled.”

He added, however, that the “key point” is that it’s no longer the Affordable Care Act that’s responsible for plans being dropped….

What a whopper. Of course the ACA is responsible. Insurance companies were diligently complying with the ACA. And that didn’t happen overnight; they began to gear up for compliance as soon as ACA became law.

Now, one of Obama’s minions issues — by unconstitutional fiat — a “fix” that can’t easily be implemented, even if allowed by the insurance commissioners of some States. It’s a blatant and cynical PR move.

Here’s the rant — mine, not Obama’s (he can rant on his own time):

Left-wing amateur hour has dragged on 4-10/12 years too long. As the bumper sticker says, don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him.

Did I foresee this particular fiasco? Of course not, but I foresaw that Obama would try to use government in ways that would harm most hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding Americans. Well, thanks to Obamacare, tax increases, racial politics, and various regulatory edicts he’s met my expectations. He’s also doing a good job of turning the U.S. into a second-rate power, unable to defend Americans’ far-flung overseas interests against the Russian and Chinese power grabs that are almost certainly in the works.

Even if Obama had succeeded in “bringing the country together” (or something to that effect), it would be a country that millions of us want no part of. On Thursday, November 28, if I give thanks for anything, it will be for a divided nation in which there is still principled and vigorous resistance to the likes of Barack Obama.

Like this:

Richard Cohen of WaPo shares his disappointment in the god the failed:

Where is Casey Stengel when we need him? In 1962, as the manager of the brand new and determinedly hapless New York Mets — 40 wins, 120 losses — he looked up and down his bench one dismal day and wondered, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” That phrase kept coming at me recently as I watched the impressively inept performance of the Obama administration in both foreign and domestic policy. On a given day, this administration makes the ’62 Mets look good….

[Obama] has lately so mishandled both domestic and foreign policy that he is in mortal peril of altering his image. This unsettling and uncharacteristic incompetence became shockingly clear when Obama failed to come to grips with the Syrian civil war….

Something went wrong. People could not sign up. Why? Not sure. Who’s at fault? Apparently no one. An act of God….

Poor Richard. He doesn’t get it. The problem isn’t just Barack Obama, it’s government. What Cohen is witnessing is government failure. It’s pervasive and inevitable — though its ill effects often go unremarked. (For example, the significant reduction of economic growth that has resulted from the growth of government spending and regulation.)

When government failure assumes spectacular proportions and can’t be ignored or explained away, it gets attention because it explodes the Nirvana fallacy about government that infects so many politicos, mediacrats, and real people (but not Americanson the whole).

What’s most striking about Cohen’s piece and similar outpourings from the media is that the target is a Democrat. I would say that a new dawn of realism is breaking, but that would be to indulge in the Nirvana fallacy.

Like this:

I’ll begin with some samples of loony left-libertarianism (to which I will not link lest I inflame a loon). This one, for example, is simply loaded with misstatements of fact and interpretation, all of which I’ve bolded:

I am appalled to see that some of my fellow Libertarians are supporting accused murderer George Zimmerman, in the wake of the end of his trial for the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin.

As Libertarians we should be advancing the cause of civil rights and standing up against the racists in this country. The last thing we should do is echo the Republicans who are praising Zimmerman.

Facebook and Twitter continue to urge citizens to stand up for Trayvon Martin through protest: Sunday marks the National Blackout Day in angry response to Zimmerman’s freedom, according to Policymic.

Here are some of the demonstrations taking place around the country today, in opposition to the court ruling that freed Zimerman – and made it legal to sta[l]k and accost unarmed teens and shoot them to death[.]

Zimmerman isn’t a racist. Some Republicans may be pleased by the outcome of the trial because Zimmerman was unjustly prosecuted, but they aren’t “praising” Zimmerman for having shot Martin. And just how does acquittal for an obvious act of self-defense make it “legal to stalk and accost unarmed teens and shoot them to death”?

Another left-libertarian is coherent, up to a point, but then:

The fact is far too many black men fail in our country, being raised in dysfunction households, attending dysfunctional schools, and living in dysfunctional communities. Prior to the expansion of the welfare state during the 1960s, blacks had about the same unemployment rate and about the same level of family instability as whites. They just earned less. But, even with regard to earnings, blacks – with hardly any outside help – moved from 30 percent of white earnings at the time of emancipation to 85 percent by the 1960s. Since then, there has been no further progress in narrowing the income gap, and the black family and community, the inner city public schools and the inner city economy have all fallen apart.

What does any of that have to do with the essential facts of the case, which are that Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman, who justifiably felt that his life was in danger? The foregoing sociological recitation may (may, I say) have something to do with Martin’s actions, but it doesn’t contain a glimmer of an excuse for those actions.

Now, I don’t know it, but I seriously doubt Mr Zimmerman needed to shoot Mr Martin, even if Mr Martin did attack him. And I seriously doubt Mr Martin would have been shot if he hadn’t been a black kid. In my heart of hearts, I too think Mr Zimmerman did something terribly wrong, and that this misdeed reflects a number of things that are terribly wrong in our culture.

The only supportable statement in that passage is Wilkinson’s admission that he doesn’t know that Zimmerman didn’t need to shoot Martin. The rest is knee-jerk. leftist. second-guessing. When Zimmerman’s head was being pounded on concrete and his face was being pummeled, do you suppose that he had a good reason to believe that Martin would relent before his (Zimmerman’s) jaw or skull had been fractured or he had suffered a debilitating concussion, if not worse?

Given the circumstances, the only reason that Martin wouldn’t have been shot if he hadn’t been black (“kid” is a bit of misdirection) is that if he had been white it is less likely that Zimmerman would have been suspicious of his behavior. Therefore, if Martin had been white, Zimmerman would less likely have followed him and been confronted by him. But Martin’s blackness — coupled with his age, dress, and demeanor — would matter to a bona-fide member of a neighborhood watch patrol, as Zimmerman was, and one with no discernible animus toward blacks. Zimmerman was doing his job, and for his pains was attacked by a violent, drug-ingesting punk who — unsurprisingly — was a young, black male.

Last — and least, in merit — is today’s performance by Barack Obama, wherein he plays not just one race card but a whole deck of them; for example:

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Well, it’s no wonder, is it? Who’s to blame (if blame is the right word), whites who don’t want to be victims or the dysfunctional, government-abetted, culture of violence that pervades black communities?

Obama almost acknowledges the fact of pervasive violence:

Now, this isn’t to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact — although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

But guess where the blame for that violence lands? On long-dead Southern bigots, of course. It’s as if the white-on-black violence of 50 to 250 years ago was somehow imprinted indelibly on blacks. Come again? Why is it that black-on-white violence — now far more common that its opposite — hasn’t caused whites to become more violent?

I am just plain sick and tired of leftists (“libertarian” and otherwise) and black race-baiters (Obama, Holder, Jackson, Sharpton, etc.) who cannot and will not honestly face up to the dysfunctionality of black culture and the role of government in compounding that dysfunctionality. A pox on all of you.

The only (potentially) good news to come out of Obama’s performance is the hint that Gauleiter Holder will not instigate a federal civil-rights charge against Zimmerman:

I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

But I’m not holding my breath waiting for Obama and his minions to do the right thing.

Related page:My Moral Profile (See especially the final section, “Implicit Racial Preferences,” to know that I write about blacks without bias or animus toward them.)

Were it not for the fickleness of voters, we would be rid of Obama and Obamacare. Rasmussen’s latest poll results yield a net rating of -22 for Obama and a net rating of -27 for Obamacare. Compare those numbers with the ratings that prevailed from mid-2009 until late summer of 2012; contrast those numbers with Obama’s pre-election surge and short-lived post-election honeymoon:Sources: Rasmussen Reports, Obama Approval Index History and Health Care Law. Obama’s net disapproval rating measures the percentage of respondents who strongly approve of his performance, minus the percentage of respondents who strongly disapprove of his performance. The ratings for Obamacare are constructed as follows: For the period before Obamacare was signed into law on March 23, 2010, the numbers represent the percentage of respondents who strongly favored the passage of Obamacare, less the percentage of respondents who strongly opposed the passage of Obamacare. From the enactment of Obamacare to the present, the numbers represent the percentage of respondents who have strongly opposed the repeal of Obamacare, minus the percentage of respondents who have strongly favored the repeal of Obamacare.

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Max Eastman, deflating Rousseauvian-Obamian romanticism:

A false and undeliberated conception of what man is lies at the bottom … of the whole bubble-castle of socialist theory. Although few seem to realize it, Marxism rests on the romantic notion of Rousseau that nature endows men with the qualities necessary to be a free, equal, fraternal, family-like living together…. (Quoted in The Great Quotations, p. 876.)

State-imposed “togetherness” is a kind of imprisonment in which the inmates suffer the illusion of freedom.

On Liberty

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity.

The governments of the United States and most States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but Americans are hostage in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Notes about Usage

"State" (with a capital "S") refers to one of the United States, and "States" refers to two or more of them. "State" and "States," thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word "state" for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

The words "liberal," "progressive," and their variants are in quotation marks because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a "marriage" (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

Comments & Correspondence

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